Pilot longevity

[ShotOne]

Can any fellow ppruners point me in the direction of reliable figures on pilot longevity? I confess this has been prompted by a small cluster of deaths of colleagues not long after retirement. On the face of it we ought to live longer than the general population; One has to be in good health to become a pilot. But do we?

[nonsense]

https://www.google.com/search?q=life+expectancy+pilots

The first study returned by the above search terms suggests pilots live longer. Other links suggest otherwise.
SAGE Journals: Your gateway to world-class journal research (http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/154193129403800126)A Study of Life Expectancy for a Sample of Retired Airline PilotsShow all authorsRobert O. Besco (http://journals.sagepub.com/author/Besco%2C+Robert+O), Satya P. Sangal (http://journals.sagepub.com/author/Sangal%2C+Satya+P), Thomas E. Nesthus (http://journals.sagepub.com/author/Nesthus%2C+Thomas+E), , , ...First Published October 1, 1994 Research Article Article information (http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/154193129403800126#)https://d1uo4w7k31k5mn.cloudfront.net/v2/2.png (https://www.altmetric.com/details.php?domain=journals.sagepub.com&citation_id=27999976) http://journals.sagepub.com/templates/jsp/_style2/_sage/images/access_no.gifAbstractThere is a popular belief in the aviation industry that retired pilots die at a younger age than their counterparts in the general population. If this is true, research into factors associated with this career would be of interest to the FAA as indicators of possible health factors to be monitored in the pilot population. A sample of 1494 pilots who retired at age 60 from a major U.S. airline between the study dates of April 1968 to July 1993 were surveyed. The Life Table Method was chosen as the most suitable approach to analyze the pattern of mortality for this data set. Comparisons were made with the U.S. general population of 60 year-old white males in 1980. A difference in life expectancy of more than 5 years longer was found for our sample of retired airline pilots. Half of the pilots in this sample retiring at age 60 were expected to live past 83.8 years of age, compared to 77.4 years for the general population of 60 year-old white males in 1980. The authors concluded that the question of lowered life expectancy for airline cockpit crews was not supported by the results of these data.

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

An AME at Heathrow said to me: "Are you an ATCO?" When told that I was he said: "I knew you couldn't be a pilot or your liver would be down to your knees"!

[kenparry]

I'm not able to quote any specific figures, but am aware that the actuarial calculations for pension provision for my former airline uses a longer lifespan for retired pilots than is given by the standard UK mortality tables.

[MaximumPete]

When I retired in 2002 the CAA wrote to me asking if they could pass on the results of all my aircrew medicals. This would have been from my initial in 1966 at Kelvin House when you spent a day with the RAF who sometimes referred people to Harley Street for a second opinion at no cost to the candidate, in my case a knee that had been embedded in a car sealed beam headlight unit. My referral took place the same day! The researchers must have had a field day.

Unfortunately I can't remember the name of the medical university that made this request but I think it might have been in Cambridge or London.

MP

[Fantome]

I'm not able to quote any specific figures, but am aware that the actuarial calculations for pension provision for my former airline uses a longer lifespan for retired pilots than is given by the standard UK mortality tables.

From that you might conclude that a career flying for a carrier (such as Qantas, if you don't let the thought of AJ get you down), can extend your life beyond the norm. There are not too many Norms* around the question. Those who made it to the wheelhouse for the term of their 'working' life, on average found there many compensations and consolations found in few other occupations. Yet, In my experience - thirty-five years - there were not too many who brought to the flight deck each day an awareness of those appreciations found in the writings of Richard Bach, Len Morgan, Antoine de Saint Exupery, Charles Lindbergh and their ilk. These are writers and airmen who drank deep at the well of life, with fine sensibilities. Generally speaking they carried the seeds of long lives, lived well. The recipe for this has several strands. Foremost is negating, unconsciously, those stresses that impede the retension of the active, involved and interested mind. Working with those who embodied the awareness that "It's great to be alive" was a constant delight . But with others it was a demoralising and draining experience. ('Farmer' Joe used to say "why would you feed the bastards?")

* Norm was a character devised by the makers of a lifestyle program in Australia whose slogan was "LIFE - BE IN IT!

[er340790]

Half of the pilots in this sample retiring at age 60 were expected to live past 83.8 years of age, compared to 77.4 years for the general population of 60 year-old white males in 1980. The authors concluded that the question of lowered life expectancy for airline cockpit crews was not supported by the results of these data.

There you go! Conclusive PROOF that all time spent flying gets added to your life expectancy!!!!!

[nonsense]

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jun/27/flight-crew-have-higher-rates-of-some-cancers-study-finds

[wiggy]

Mention of that recent academic report briefly popped up on Rumours and News and then promptly got dumped into the Cabin Crew section (‘cos of the thread title used) so I suspect got missed by many.

Here is a direct link to the report itself:

https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12940-018-0396-8

Whilst the headlines are certainly interesting and the paper is worth a read fans of statistics and epidemiology will find some of the “discussion” section of the paper interesting since there’s lots in there that might raise eyebrows if you are a data collecting geek, including the fact that the authors of the survey themself comment that it seems the survey population was at least to some extent self selecting and that ”..... health outcomes in our study and in the NHANES were based on self-report; validation through medical records was not possible due to the scope and cost of this endeavor.”.....

[MaximumPete]

Well, I stopped flying commercially a week after my 54th birthday after 35 years at the coal face. Still try to do a bit of light aircraft flying but love retirement!

[ShotOne]

I confess I'm surprised that it's so hard to find statistics of cance by occupation. Wiggy, re your "survey geek" comment it's clear they spread their net as wide as they could given their resources, using social media, unions and dieect approaches in airports. I'm not clear why one would object to the medical conditions being self reported; are you contending that some of the sample might have falsely claimed to have cancer when they don't??

[wiggy]

I’'m not clear why one would object to the medical conditions being self reported;

Because if you want an objective report on an illness/condition you need to see the medical records....and sadly yes, some people do exaggerate their illnesses, OTOH some play them down or don’t even mention them.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-report_study

are you contending that some of the sample might have falsely claimed to have cancer when they don't?




No idea if that happened in this survey sadly it is not impossible, however I am definitely contending that there is a danger here of the stats being skewed by a phenomenon known as “self selection bias”,.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-selection_bias

Human nature being what it is somebody in good health, a bit busy, running around on a full roster sees a flyer/advert in a union magazine/e-mail labelled “crew heath survey” they will probably consign it to the “I might do that tomorrow” bucket....OTOH if you have suffered a significant health problem then people being people chances are they will take more interest and probably will complete the survey ... Potentially skewing the results in the direction of (in this case) a higher incidence of illness in the overall population than is actually the case.

As I understand it if you want to produce a meaningful survey of overall health in a community your participants are selected at random and you don’t let them self report major medical conditions....doing that costs money but if the intent is to get regulators and law makers to actually listen you need to spend it.

[ShotOne]

Actually, while I appreciate the point you make, Considering all pilots are required by law to report any serious medical issue, I’m surprised how hard it is to come by raw data on which to base any conclusion.

[what next]

... Considering all pilots are required by law to report any serious medical issue...

You mean like all pilots are required by law to observe speed limits whilst driving? ;)

But kidding apart, there will never be a statistics about the life expectancy of pilots. And now, with more and more laws regulating privacy and data protection even less so than before. Simply because the vast majority of pilots do not die whilst still being pilots. After retirement our profession changes to "pensioner" and this is what the doctor will put under "occupation" when filling out our certificate of death. And most probably that doctor will never know what the former profession of his patient has been. At least where I live.

[wiggy]

I thought somewhere in the paper, but perhaps I am imagining it, that there was mention that there were limitations due funding..

TBF it is actually an interesting paper and the authors themselves do point out the problems with some of the methods used.

[ShotOne]

What next: good point, I’d alao go along with wiggy on his statistical point while highlighting that an occupational link is likely to cause UNDER-reporting since a pilot contracting a serious medical issue will lose his medical and cease to be a pilot

Its also worth noting that the Besco report dates back a quarter of a century and samples pilots who flew in a far more gentlemanly era in terms of workload than today. Also the conclusion is not supported by their figures since they compare professional pilots to the general white male population as opposed to those professionally qualified who are expected to live on average 7-8 years longer. Surprised this escaped wiggy since he seems quite hot on statistical protocol.